Bail set at $75,0000 for alleged Plymouth con man

Monday

Jul 23, 2007 at 12:01 AMJul 23, 2007 at 10:23 PM

A Bristol County prosecutor sought $1 million bail for an elusive Plymouth man - an eye-popping sum for an alleged con man charged with two counts of larceny over $250. Ultimately District Court Judge Joseph Welch set Dennis Drummond’s bail at $75,000 Monday.

By Julie Jette

A Bristol County prosecutor sought $1 million bail for an elusive Plymouth man - an eye-popping sum for an alleged con man charged with three nonviolent larceny counts.

Citing Dennis Drummond’s history of failing to appear to answer both criminal charges and civil complaints, Bristol County First Assistant District Attorney William McCauley said the amount was warranted to make sure that Drummond shows up in court. He added that Drummond had established a pattern of “stealing and fleeing, stealing and fleeing.”

In addition to the relatively paltry criminal charges, in 2005 Drummond had a $1.3 million default judgment entered against him in a Suffolk Superior Court civil consumer fraud case brought by then-attorney General Thomas Reilly. He failed to appear at multiple hearings in that case, in which he allegedly took money and deeds from nearly 80 timeshare owners and failed to deliver new deeds to them. Timeshares are a type of vacation home ownership in which someone owns a home for specific periods.

District Court Judge Joseph Welch set Drummond’s bail at $75,000 on Monday, but the 53-year-old former real estate broker will not be able to go free simply by posting bail. If he comes up with the money, he will be held until he can be arraigned on larceny charges in Bristol Superior court and in Malden District Court, according to Bristol District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter’s office. He is being held at the Dartmouth House of Correction.

Drummond was arrested on a fugitive warrant on February 14 in South Carolina, where he had lived at least since 2005, according to officials. He was freed on bail and arrested again on July 9 in North Carolina, just over the border from Myrtle Beach, S.C., where he had been living. North Carolina officials held him on $200,000 bail and he waived extradition to Massachusetts.

McCauley said the Secret Service helped capture Drummond in North Carolina.

Drummond appeared in the New Bedford courtroom in a yellow polo shirt with a cruise ship logo on it, khaki shorts, handcuffs and leg irons. He shook his head and rolled his eyes several times as McCauley described his alleged crime and his capture.

Over an objection by Drummond’s attorney, John Manoog of Hyannis, McCauley recounted a previous civil case in Drummond’s past, when in 1993 he was ordered to pay $230,000 in another consumer fraud case involving 50 plaintiffs in a scheme nearly identical to the one for which he was fined in 2005.

Manoog said that Drummond made “numerous attempts” to resolve the Attorney General’s civil case in the earlier part of this decade, and pointed out that the state’s top prosecutor “chose not to prosecute any of these cases in a criminal way.”

He also said that Drummond’s company, Global Marketing Ltd., had successfully traded more than 7,000 timeshares, and that the cases in which people hadn’t received new deeds were due to problems at a company with which Drummond was doing business.

Manoog also said Drummond reached out to one elderly couple who had pressed charges in Bristol County and had offered to refund their losses - even placing money in an escrow account to enable them to be paid.

Janice Doucette, a Somerset woman who claims Drummond stole $25,000 in cash and the value of their timeshare deeds, said Manoog did call her, but she did not return his call.

Manoog also complained that several prosecutors in District Attorney Sutter’s office did not return numerous calls he made in recent weeks trying to resolve the criminal charges against Drummond.

“I said Mr. Drummond was willing to forward the money to resolve this case,” he said. “(Drummond) was waiting to resolve the matter, and then he was going to return,” to Massachusetts.

“This is two years that he hasn’t appeared in court,” McCauley said. “He’s had plenty of time.”

Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office is seeking the removal of a mortgage lien on Drummond’s house on College Pond Road in Plymouth in order to seize the house as restitution for plaintiffs in the 2005 civil judgment.

Julie Jette of The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Mass.) may be reached at jjette@ledger.com.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.